September 7th, 2012 by Brian Beeler

Diversified Agency Services HP Data Center On-Site

Diversified Agency Services (DAS) has launched Consolidated Data Services, a new venture that is an internal IT services provider for Omnicom Group's more than 100 creative marketing communications agencies across 71 countries worldwide. DAS has created three data centers in Atlanta, Phoenix and London, deploying a homogenous HP Converged Infrastructure that includes compute servers, storage, networking, software and services. The end result is that DAS can support their agency customers that previously had data and applications localized and in rigid silos, with a new centralized HP infrastructure that offers a major step up in application performance, security and data reliability. HP and DAS brought Storage Review on-site to tour the Atlanta facility and learn more about why DAS selected the HP Converged Infrastructure solution.

DAS Atlanta Data Center
The Atlanta data center is the second DAS data center to come online in the US, Phoenix being the first. The Atlanta center followed the Phoenix model, with a scaled back size. The suite itself is 2,740SF within the capacious 990,00SF Quality Technology Services (QTS) facility in downtown Atlanta. QTS provides a secure suite for DAS complete with 8 foot separation walls and card key access with overhead video monitoring.

Additionally, QTS handles building-level security, cooling and redundant power from two grids and emergency power services.

The DAS data center is capable of housing up to 80 48U equipment racks, configured in 4 rows. Overhead are ladder racks for copper and fiber connectivity. Underneath the 4 foot raised floor is power distribution that's managed by QTS. For connectivity DAS has two 10Gb MPLS, two 10Gb Internet lines, 10Gb point-to-point between the Atlanta and Phoenix data centers and a 100Mb Internet out-of-band management network.

HP Converged Infrastructure Within DASThe current DAS Atlanta layout includes 32 racks, which are mostly 48U APC NetShelter SX family of racks that are 42" deep.

The network in place may be as impressive as the compute and storage, DAS has deployed HP's FlexFabric switching, which includes:

The net result is wire-speed performance to all ports, which improves the data center efficiency and ultimately drives more rapid access to applications for the agency users. All switches feature built-in HP Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF), that allows multiple switches to be virtualized and operate as a single entity. Further, the HP Intelligent Management Center (IMC) allows for single pane of glass management of both HP and other vendor's devices across the network fabric. DAS has also deployed HP TippingPoint, which protects virtual and physical environments across the network.

On the compute side, DAS has deployed 119 total servers from the ProLiant family:

DAS executives have been thrilled with the storage piece of the deployment, commenting about the ease of use of the 3PAR system as well as the above-promised data reduction of the StoreOnce. Further, the tape library, 3PAR and StoreOnce can all scale nicely with the growth in DAS business requirements, which will almost certainly explode once the Omnicom agencies figure out the full potential of the new centralized infrastructure.

Bottom LineDAS could have selected a myriad of individual vendors for their data centers, but they selected HP for the actual "convergedness" of their converged infrastructure solution. DAS executives pressed hand on that theme throughout the day, clearly illustrating that HP looked and acted different from the competition. From a unified sales front to the HP "white glove" deployment service to the HP Proactive 24 Services for support and maintenance, DAS felt like HP's hardware solutions weren't just integrated, but the entire team was too.

DAS has kept a running log of the build and decision process at A DAS Journey.